Erik Ortvad was a painter and a creator of many drawings.
He debuted as a painter in 1935. He is mostly known for colorful surrealistic paintings.
He also created several hundred satiric drawings about the modern way of life under the pseudonym Enrico.
In 1948 he was a founding member of the COBRA avant-garde art movement.
He is represented in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen.
During the second world war he lived as a refugee in Sweden due to communist sympathies and a Jewish wife, and in 1962 he returned and settled in a croft in Kvänjarp, Ljungby Municipality, Småland, Sweden where he lived for the rest of his life.